For some time a few weeks ago, the daily Mass readings followed Elijah in 1 Kings. There’s something about Elijah that speaks deeply to me. God allows him to experience hunger, despair, thirst before providing for his needs. And when he provides, it doesn’t always last. Elijah was being fed by ravens and quenching his thirst at the stream until the stream dried up (1 Kgs 17:7). God allows Elijah to be deeply dependent on him. His hunger binds him to God.
Encountering these passages a few weeks ago, it was the woman’s jar of meal and jug of oil that stood out to me. She was about to cook her last meal for herself and her son before they both died (1 Kgs 17:12). But then she meets Elijah, and the jar of meal and jug of oil miraculously do not empty. I wonder how long the three of them survive together on this. We can survive longer than we imagine on very little.
I feel the same about our experience of lockdown the last three months. I’ve never imagined going so long without the Eucharist. And yet experiencing hunger for God in the Eucharist is something I’m thankful for. I’m grumpy about starvation rations, but at the same time, I admit… my hunger has bound me to God.
In the land of scarcity, God allows us to feel the growling emptiness in our hearts, the meagreness of our spiritual poverty. He’s allowed us to feel absence and lack, like Elijah under the furze bush,
I have had enough. Take my life.
1 Kgs 19:4
But in this deep poverty and hunger, I discover that only God can fill me. My faith, paradoxically, has been strengthened, not weakened. My desire and my longing have grown.
We often forget that sacraments are not automatic, and grace is not magic. Our disposition determines the fruit that a sacrament bears in our lives. If our desire and hunger are stronger, greater will be the fruit.
In England, many of us will start receiving the sacraments again over the next few weeks. The Lord’s joy will be even greater than our own. And I wonder what kind of fruitfulness we might see in the Church from our enforced period of hunger and growing desire. Let’s stoke the embers of desire in our hearts, as we wait for the Lord’s words,
Get up and eat.
I Kgs 19:5
Thank you Hannah, so much! Every word of this blog resonates with me. It reminds me that in the first week of lockdown I heard myself saying to my husband “the jar of meal shall never run dry” much to his surprise! And just as you say: “But in this deep poverty and hunger, I discover that only God can fill me. My faith, paradoxically, has been strengthened, not weakened. My desire and my longing have grown” Indeed! Amen!
Wow Mary! I love that the same Scripture came to you as well. Thanks so much for sharing!